WEASEL GUY

CHARACTER PROFILE

2006-02-18T10:56:00.000-08:00

WEASEL GUY

Real Name: Dwight Ezekiel “Dweasel” Ravenswood
Occupation: Super-Hero, Taxidermist, Wannabe Hollywood Player
Identity: Mostly Secret
Legal Status: American citizen with no criminal record
Former Aliases: None
Place of Birth: Woodstock, New York
Known Relatives: Dwight Henry Sallinger (father), Polly Ann Ravenswood (mother), Richard Hammil (step-father)
Group Affiliation: Sometimes partners with Ferret Female or The Peacemongers
Marital Status: Single
Base of Operations: New York City/Los Angeles
First Appearance: Weasel Guy #1 (mini-comic 1984), Deity #3 (short story leading into Weasel Guy/Witchblade One Shot, 1999)
History: Dweasel Ravenswood was born to a couple of hippies in upstate New York. His parents met in an anti-war demonstration and took the whole “make love, not war” thing very seriously. Before long, Polly Ravenswood was pregnant and, Dwight Sallinger headed for the hills. Polly named her son after his deadbeat dad, but couldn’t really bring herself to use his name after he left. She took to calling him “Dweasel” instead and the name stuck.

Life was not easy for single-mom Polly, but she did her best, taking different jobs and dating different men, all the while leaving Dweasel in the care of a Zenith 21” color TV.

When he was 16, his uncle, Ted Ravenswood, died and left Dweasel his old Taxidermy shop in Westchester, New York. This would mark a profound change in the teenager’s life! From the moment he first saw the old, dusty shop, Dweasel vowed he would make his mark on the world—by reinventing the lost art of taxidermy! He wasn’t sure how he would do it, until one fateful day, a crummy tabloid gave him an idea. An article about mutated giant animals appearing near an old atom-bomb test site out west piqued his curiosity. Soon, Dweasel was hunting in the Nevada desert and duking it out with a giant, radioactive weasel. Ultimately, Dweasel prevailed, but not before the creature bit him and mysteriously granted him amazing powers!

And thus, Weasel Guy was born!

Using comic book heroes as a model, Weasel Guy began appearing all over the New York metropolitan area, stopping criminals and inspiring others to his cause. By the time he was 25, Weasel Guy was a household name, by far the world’s most famous super hero on earth.

And then he got bored.

As a TV-watching child, Dweasel always dreamt of being an action hero. For a child immersed in fantasy, this was the ultimate aspiration. As a young adult, Dweasel couldn’t help but feel a little lost—having achieved his dream at a young age, what more was there to do in life?

The answer came in a call from Hollywood!

With the help of his good friend, a Hollywood talent agent named Miki Waronker, Dweasel made a deal with Mercer Street Studios to produce a TV series and feature film about his own exploits as Weasel Guy.

Currently, Dweasel is in the process of moving from New York to Los Angeles to pursue his new dream. Waiting for him on the west coast is Jennifer Duncan, AKA Ferret Female. Dweasel and Jen have been in a “long-distance” relationship for some time. Unfortunately, Jen does not know of Dweasel’s plans to retire from crime-fighting, she believes he is moving west to solidify their partnership—in and out of costume.
Height: 6’ 2”
Weight: 195 lbs
Eyes: Brown
Hair: Brown
Strength Level: “Impressive”
Known Superhuman Powers: Weasel Guy has the “proportionate strength, speed and agility of a 50-foot weasel.” That means he’s pretty strong, fast and agile. I mean, would YOU want to fight a 50-foot weasel? I don’t think so.
Weapons & Paraphernalia: Weasel Guy has a retractable cybernetic tail. It’s fairly useless in combat, but it is strong enough to hold his weight if he needs to swing on it or something. Weasel Guy also rides a motorcycle as a means of transport (and to look cool). The current model is a Ducati Supersport 1000 DS.

Above: art from Deity, issue #4 (1999).
A montage showing Weasel Guy's origin!

GALLERY: Weasel Guy/Witchblade Cover

2005-09-23T12:12:00.000-07:00

Above is the "main" cover to the Weasel Guy/Witchblade one-shot, by me. There was also an alternate cover by Jeff Matsuda. I'll post that soon.

WHO Is Weasel Guy?

2005-09-23T10:52:00.000-07:00

behind the furry mask of Weasel Guy is twenty-something Dweasel Ravenswood. When he was only sixteen, Dweasel's life was changed forever when, during a taxidermy accident gone terribly wrong, he was bitten by a fifty-foot, radioactive weasel. The accident gave him incredible powers: the "proportionate strength, speed and agility of a fifty foot weasel."

Like some other familiar characters who will remain nameless, Dweasel decided to use his powers for good and he soon became known as the World's Greatest Super-Hero.

Now, ten years later, Dweasel is bored with the crime-fighting life and decides to hit the road. His plan: to move from New York to Los Angeles, where he will produce a TV Series and film--about himself!

Along the way, we meet all sorts of oddball characters that populate Weasel Guy's world (Some of which have appeared in solo-adventures of their own in the comics anthology, Comiculture).

More info--and ART--coming soon!

WHAT Is Weasel Guy??? A History in Brief...

2005-09-22T17:47:00.000-07:00

Weasel Guy is the creation of comic book artist, writer and small-press publisher, Steve Buccellato. That's me.

I originally created Weasel Guy back in the 80's while I was a student at the High School of Art and Design in New York City. Along with a few other fledgling cartoonists, I put created my own 'xeroxed' comics under the imprint Pathetic Comics. Weasel Guy was the "flagship" character in a world sort of like the Marvel or DC Universes.

This was great fun.

As luck would have it, in 1985 I interned at Marvel Comics and started my professional carreer. As an intern and still in high school, my Weasel Guy comics benefitted from my association with the Marvel Bullpen and John Romita's "Raiders." At some point, I will post some art from that era. I still have some Weasel Guy drawing by a couple of Marvel's artists that are pretty cool.

After my high school years, Weasel Guy disappeared for a while, living only in my own imagination.

That is until 1996. That year, I was working with my friend and sometimes-collaborator, Marc Siry to develop new content for the internet. The plan was ambitious, considering that online entertainment hardly existed back then. It involved developing a bunch of original properties that would be turned into a kind of cross between comics and animation. Very difficult with the bandwidth issues at that time. Today this would be a whole lot easier to do using Flash, but I digress. Our company was called Mad Science Media and while the internet entertainment thing never got off the ground, we DID develop several new concepts. One of them was a revamped version of...you guessed it...Weasel Guy. See, there was a point to this story!

Some time later, while working in the original Mad Science Media studio in Marina Del Rey, our neighbor from the office next door, Karl Altstaetter, showed an interest in Weasel Guy. Next door was Hyperwerks Entertainment , publisher of a comic called Deity, which was created by Karl (and colored by my brother, Brian).

To make a long story short (too late), after years of obscurity, Weasel Guy finally had a comic of his own! In 1999, Weasel Guy/Witchblade was published by Hyperwerks. This one-shot comic featured the popular character Witchblade, in a bizarre cross-over. It also featured one of Witchblade's creators, David Wohl, who also happens to be a former Marvel intern...and a good friend!

The crossover sold very well for an independent publication and the following year Weasel Guy returned in the limited series, Weasel Guy: Road Trip, published by Image Comics in association with Hyperwerks. The series ran only two issues before it was cancelled as part of a big executive change at Image (former publisher Larry Marder was a big supporter of WG, but his replacement was most unkind!).

Since then, I have been planning the return of Weasel Guy, though there have been some detours along the way. I will, one day, finish the "Road Trip" story, even if I must publish it myself. Meanwhile, some characters from the "Weasel Guy Universe" have appeared in short solo adventures in the pages of Comiculture.

What is next for Weasel Guy? It remains to be seen. Maybe this website will be the beginning of a bold new chapter in the life of the "original slacker super-hero." Stay tuned...